We studied the location of Scotland and France on a map and also discussed the location of the Appalacian Mountains. We then sorted animals according to what category they belong to , such as mammal, bird, insect, reptile, etc. She still needs to write down some features of each. She also learned some things that came to America from Scotland, such as the Lockness Monster and their music and dress.
Recently in Geography Category
Today we were at Marian's house and we studied Holland and read the "The boy at the Dike", a Holland Folktale.. The the kids, using material around the yard, old carpet, egg cartons, bricks, playdoh , made dikes. Most of them had problems with water leaking underneath them, but Megan solved this with clay and styrofoam egg cartons.
We read these two books to expand on the understanding of African culture.
In Galveston's meetup group, they are discussing Africa. She is picking certain countries in which to focus. This week she hit on Tanzania and Morocco and bits of West Africa. I was in another room getting the Tanzania safari project ready but I heard she talked to them about carrying water on their heads, and raising sheep and their way of life basically.
Megan learned about the culture of Kenya, Tanzania and West Africa. She learned about the fact that they were herders. We read a book about this tonight called "the herd boy. " She learned they carried carried water long distances on their heads.
Megan went to an HMNS class where she learned about the social structure of ancient Japan. I will upload a picture when I find it. She did a map of Japan and labeled the countries. Then, she learned about the knives and later about a very expensive knife that needs to be flexible but hard at the tip. This is hard to make and so a sword like this is very expensive. It was called "The Katana".
Megan on page 56, learned about rivers and the parts of a river. She learned about the source, that streams flow into the river, and the mouth of the river. She also learned that the land along the side of a river is called a bank. On page 57, Megan looked at St. Lawrence River on a big map in the school room upstairs. We found the source and the mouth of the St.Lawrence river. It is also in the book, Minn on Mississippi. A book we are reading about a Snapping Turtle moving along the Mississippi River.
Again, I asked Megan what these were before doing the pages and she knew the difference between a desert and plain, probably from our travels. Travel definitely is a great teacher. So, I just let her cut and paste the desert and plains images to the right definition. She is starting to read enough to recognize which is which.
Megan and I read about the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. We discussed that this world was new to them, so they called it "The New World". Also, we discussed they were coming here because they couldn't practice their religion in England, where they came from. Then, it discussed how they listened to the King of England for a time until the American Revolution, where we became Independent from England (Britain). July 4th , 1776. We also learned where Massachusetts is located on the map.
Today, Megan and I reviewed whom Christopher Columbus was as I need to go over important historical people. In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. We discussed that he was trying to find a faster route to "The Indies" but he reached the North American- South American Continents, more specifically central America, which is just an extension of North America.
